


Colorful Flowers and Hospital Beds

by PaleAssassin



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Molly Hooper is referenced, References to Suicide, as is Mrs. Hudson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 09:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaleAssassin/pseuds/PaleAssassin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young woman walked down a busy sidewalk, pulling her young daughter along. They were late for an appointment because the little girl wanted to pick flowers from the local garden. As a single mother, the young woman had almost no resistance to giving her daughter what she wanted, though her daughter never asked for much; stopping to pick flowers was something she always wanted to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colorful Flowers and Hospital Beds

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, I'm PaleAssassin. Call me Pale if you want. This is my first real fic I'm posting on here, so please be kind. I'd love constructive criticism as I am new to the writing business. I wrote this in four hours with no one to edit it so please don't blame me for any grammatical/spelling errors. I'm also posting this on my tumblr. There are more notes at the end.

A young woman walked down a busy sidewalk, pulling her young daughter along. They were late for an appointment because the little girl wanted to pick flowers from the local garden. As a single mother, the young woman had almost no resistance to giving her daughter what she wanted, though her daughter never asked for much; stopping to pick flowers was something she always wanted to do.

For now, the little girl bounced alongside her mother, her dark, curly hair bobbing with each hop and brightly colored flowers clutched in her tiny grip. The little girl hummed to a tune she’d heard that morning, no sense of urgency in her brain. For now, she was happy to be with her mother, even if they were going to one of the bad appointments.

They were almost to their destination when the little girl spotted two men. One was very proper looking; he stood so straight the little girl had trouble thinking it was at all comfortable. He wore a fancy suit, shiny black with black waistcoat and a red tie. His face was emotionless but his eyes, the little girl thought, were very, very sad. The other man was slightly shorter, his hair was grey and he stood slumped, as if his emotions were weighing him down. He was less dressed-up as the other man; instead, he wore a simple black coat, white shirt, and dark slacks. He looked at the ground sadly, staring at seemingly nothing. The little girl thought it very odd to see two men staring at a sidewalk.

“Mummy?” The little girl asked, pulling at the fabric of her mother’s skirt. The woman looked down into her daughters bright blue eyes sighing inwardly. They were already late, and now it seemed as if her daughter wanted to make them miss the appointment altogether.

Still, the woman loved to indulge her daughter, so she turned to look down at her, “Yes, Melody?”

The little girl pointed to the two men, still standing and staring at the sidewalk, “What’re they doin’, Mummy?”

The woman followed her daughters’ finger, her eyes finally coming to rest on the two men. Her breath caught in her throat as she recognized them. The news story surrounding the two had erupted a few months before her daughter was born, but the woman remembered it clear as day. She looked between the men and her daughter, inwardly debating on whether or not to tell her daughter. It was not really a story for a young girl, but then, who was she to deny her daughter knowledge? In the end, she sighed, kneeling down so that she was looking into her daughters eyes.

“You see, Melody, a few months before you were born, there was a story about a very good man. This man and his companion helped many people in need, catching bad men when the police couldn’t find them. But there was a very bad man who wanted to hurt the good man and his friend. So the very bad man made it out that the good man was a fraud; that he made all the crimes up.”

“Was he a fr-fraud, Mummy?” The little girl asked, her eyes wide and thoughtful.

The woman shook her head, a small, sad smile on her young face, “No, no he was incredibly real. I know because he and his fri- no that’s not quite right,” The woman frowned for a second, before continuing, “He and his lover helped me once. He was not a very nice man on the outside, but I saw kindness and pain on the inside. His lover was good for him; he was compassionate and always keeping him in check.

“Anyway, the good man was forced to do some damaging things, and he was hurt badly right there,” She pointed to the spot where the two men were still standing, “and he had to leave. His lover was broken, though many, including myself tried to help him. Exactly two years later, when you were about one and a half, the good man’s lover left here in the same spot. He couldn’t bear to stay when his lover couldn’t come back.”

“So now, every year on the anniversary of their departure, those two men stand vigil at that spot. The one in the suit was the good man’s brother, and always brings flowers to put next to the building. The other man was the good man’s friend, and he simply stands with the other for a few hours.”

The woman frowned, staring up at the sky for a moment and wondering why her throat suddenly felt tight, “I don’t think I’ve ever realized that they do that, but I guess I always knew.”

The little girl looked up to the sky too, thinking. Then, she looked at her mother and asked, “Are they sad?” She pointed again to the two men, who hadn’t moved the entire time the woman had talked.

The woman was surprised to feel sorrow wash over her, tears sticking to the back of her throat, “Yes, Melody. I think they are. That’s what happens when someone you love leaves, and that’s why the good man’s lover never wanted to move on without him.”

The little girl frowned, looking towards the two men and furrowing her brow as if making a very important decision. The woman stood, reaching for her daughter to pull her along. They were already extremely late, if not too late, and needed to be moving along. This appointment was important, they really couldn’t miss it.

Before she could get a hand on Melody, the girl darted away, clutching the flowers in her hand tightly and running straight towards the two grieving men. The woman ran after her, calling her name and panicking slightly. Melody wasn’t supposed to run; the doctors feared she would injure herself.

Melody skidded to a stop in front of the two men. The one in the suit glared down at her, his very presence imposing and dangerous, but the other grey-haired man knelt down to her level. He tried to smile at her, but couldn’t quite make it real, “What are you doing here, little girl?”

Melody smiled at him, all bright happiness and sunshine on a gloomy day, “My mummy says you two are sad. She said your friends left you right here. Mummy thinks I might leave her too, but I don’t want her to be sad.” She clutched her brightly colored flowers, holding them out towards the grey-haired man, “She told me the story about the two good men that left here. I think that they need some flowers, ‘cause they helped my mummy once. D’ you think you can give them mine for me?”

The grey-haired man looked up to the young woman, who had caught up with her daughter moments before. His eyes were compassionate as he looked at the young mother, who was obviously taking care of her sick daughter, and he nodded to her. She nodded back before pulling at her daughters’ coat, “Come along Melody, the doctors are waiting.”

Melody stuck her chin up, still smiling at the man as she sent a glare to her mother, and kept the flowers at arm’s length. She wanted these men to take her flowers and give them to the men who left; they deserve them. They sound like good people, Melody thought, if a little boring.

Surprisingly, it was the well-dressed man who finally grasped at the flowers. He knelt down to Melody’s level, giving her a once over. The little girl was paler than considered healthy, her breathing was erratic, her cheekbones were sticking out in an unhealthy manner, and her eyes were sunken. It confirmed his suspicions; this poor girl was dying. 

The well-dressed man smiled, something that didn’t look exactly natural on his face, “I will give them to my brother and his husband. Go with your mother now, and I promise you I will get your flowers to them.”

Melody nodded, surprisingly serious for such a young girl, and let her mother drag her to her appointment. Her mother left St. Bart’s a week later, but Melody did not.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two men stood in a cemetery; one in a suit and tie, the other in a coat. In front of them stood the headstone of a little girl, a little girl who had bright blue eyes and a smile on her face, no matter how bad things god. The man in the coat visited her on her last day, where he told her stories about a man and his blogger who solved crimes no one else could solve. The man in the suit sent money to the young mother and paid for the entire funeral. He found her a therapist that would help her through the trauma of losing her only child; it was the least he could do for a little girl who held no prejudice against the man once called a fraud. 

The two men stood side-by-side, both holding a bright bouquet of flowers. Simultaneously, as if they’d planned it, both men set their bouquets down and turned, leaving the cemetery. Three people they knew, three of the bravest people they knew, all buried in the cold ground in the middle of winter. Too much sadness for one simple place. 

Later, the grey-haired man in a coat would go visit the grieving mother. He would take her to a friend of the good mans’, a woman who helped him and saw him for who he really was, even if everyone else thought he was only the man he acted like. They would talk over coffee every other day, and sometimes the grey-haired man would join them, occasionally he would even drag the man in the suit with him. 

The man in the suit would send the mother money for years, until he couldn’t anymore. But then someone else would take the helm and send her money; anything for a woman so brave. He would move her into a flat above an old woman, who would make her things and go shopping with her and always tell her that she was not a housekeeper. 

The flat would be very somber, always smelling like chemicals and gunpowder. There would be a smiley face on one wall with bullet holes in it, a skull on the mantle that the woman would never have the heart to take down, and a violin in its case by a chair. The woman would take to playing the violin during the nights she couldn’t sleep, and could almost hear the ghostly tunes it used to play on the nights she could. 

She would stay in the flat until the owner passed on; then, she’d take over the old woman’s flat, like the old woman said she should, and rent out the flat above. She’d stay there until she passed on herself, buried beside her daughter. Someone would always leave brightly colored flowers on both of their graves, and two other graves under an old tree. They’d stay that way for a long time, long enough to forget the story of the good man and his blogger, long enough for the descendants of the grey-haired man, the woman who knew the good man better than anyone, and the well-dressed man to forget why they sent flowers to the graves on the same day each year. Soon after, the flowers would stop coming, but the people in the graves didn’t mind. They were, in fact, dead, so they never really saw the flowers. It was a nice gesture, though.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

But before all that, before the flat and the coffee dates and the bouquets of flowers, the little girl would watch her mother leave the hospital. Her mother would be crying, only held up by the grey-haired man and the sheer force of will she’d called upon to leave her daughters deathbed. The little girl would be sad; she’d told the two grieving men that she didn’t want to leave, but apparently it was her time.

The girl would watch her mother disappear, only to find two men standing in front of her. One was very tall and thin, with dark, curly hair, pale skin, and bright blue eyes. He wore a trench coat and a blue scarf, and didn’t look a day over twenty-five. The other man was shorter, stouter, but by no means chubby. He wore a cream colored jumper and dark pants, his sandy blond hair cut short and eyes obscured by the way he held himself, as if he was standing with a pole to his back. The girl looked between the two, not scared at all. She felt as if she knew these men, from another time and place.

The man with the blond hair knelt down to her, holding out his hand. In the calmest voice he had, which was very calm, since he had been a doctor, asked the girl for her name. She answered that her name was Melody and she knew she had just died from a terminal illness that she couldn’t pronounce.

The blond-haired man chuckled, “I don’t doubt that. Well, my name is John Watson, and this here is my husband Sherlock Holmes.”  
Melody shook his hand and turned to the tall man, Sherlock Holmes. He was the man the grey-haired man talked about; the one who everyone thought was a fraud. She didn’t say this, of course. Rather, she said, “I know you. You helped my mummy once. You’re a good man.”

Sherlock, for all his cold manner and emotionless façade, smiled down at the young girl. Without saying a word, he held out his hand. She took it, along with John’s when he offered it, and they walked away into a blinding light, where there was no pain or sadness, only love and family. They would watch over the little girl until her mother came to find her, and they were glad for the job. The girl was a lot like a mix of them both, in a sense, and they would be glad to look after such a brave little girl.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in response to a mental image I had today, of Lestrade and Mycroft standing at the spot where Sherlock hit the pavement after jumping off of St. Bart's. Really hope it wasn't that bad, but I also hope it was kind of sad since I've been on an angst kick for awhile now and just got around to writing some. Any comments are appreciated unless its hate.


End file.
